That's crazy, Reika. No wonder you're frustrated!! My DD's Nook Color charging cable broke after just 4 months and of course it's just slightly different from allll the many other micro USB chargers we have. The replacements are $20 and the reviews are full of people complaining how easily they break. Meanwhile my Kindle charger is still like new after 3 years and even if it broke all the standard chargers fit it just fine. Ten points for Kindle!

Have a Kindle 3G, I love it and hope it lasts my lifetime, including the original charger which just says "bring it!"

I would have gotten a Fire, but for some reason I didn't like it anywhere near as much as the 3G, so wanted to get something different. I did like my cheapo tablet, but the charger thing has driven me insane for almost a month now. A coworker even brought in his box'o'chargers. That's where I found some random ones that fit, were the same power output and it didn't power up.

Whenever I hook the blasted thing up to a USB cable of some sort (it has both regular and micro), and it turned on and off reproachfully that it didn't have power so couldn't connect to the omputer. While I had it hooked up to a usb charger in the darn wall outlet.

So I basically have a plastic brick, but one I don't dare get rid of because it does have some of my info on it and with my luck whatever scavenger found it would have a charger that would work.

However Newegg is my best friend and I got a replacement that was superior, but the same price thanks to the Holiday Whacky Season specials. And free shipping.

Unfortunately, it's being shipped by one of the banes of my existence: UPS.

"So I basically have a plastic brick, but one I don't dare get rid of because it does have some of my info on it and with my luck whatever scavenger found it would have a charger that would work."

If you're planning on discarding it, just destroy it before you do and your data is safe. It won't give up your secrets if you crush it with a hammer or drvie your car over it.

Virg

That does not work for iPads though - I know someone whose iPad was run over by a large pickup truck. You could see that it was slightly flatter where it got run over, and the display was broken, but it still worked.

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What part of v_e = \sqrt{\frac{2GM}{r}} don't you understand? It's only rocket science!

"The problem with re-examining your brilliant ideas is that more often than not, you discover they are the intellectual equivalent of saying, 'Hold my beer and watch this!'" - Cindy Couture

"So I basically have a plastic brick, but one I don't dare get rid of because it does have some of my info on it and with my luck whatever scavenger found it would have a charger that would work."

If you're planning on discarding it, just destroy it before you do and your data is safe. It won't give up your secrets if you crush it with a hammer or drvie your car over it.

Virg

That does not work for iPads though - I know someone whose iPad was run over by a large pickup truck. You could see that it was slightly flatter where it got run over, and the display was broken, but it still worked.

Babybartfast jumped on ours (shoes on, both feet, direct hit) and it didn't phase it one bit. She got in some royal trouble for it, of course, but it's nice to know that the iPad can stand up to some abuse!

A friend of mine had great fun going in to buy a car carrying a briefcase. She negotiated her deal on the car, and then when they tried to set up financing, she told them she wanted to pay for the car up front. In cash. Actual cash. The briefcase was full of it. She told us later she had been tempted to point out that they were "non-consecutive bills" but thought that might be pushing it. They did not know what to do, and ended up calling in several extra car salesman to help count the money (she'd had it organized, of course, but they had to verify).

My dad did that once. They had to give him $40.57 in change--but they didn't have any change, because no one ever buys a car for cash. They had to ask him if he would take a check for what they owed him.

The salesman was pretty darned surprised at getting cash. I think he was also worried about whether he could get it all to the bank before it close

Paying for a car completely in cash can also be the sign of criminal activity and may raise suspicions.

Before my beloved dad passed away, he worked as a stock checker and auditor for a luxury car dealership in an expensive part of inner city Sydney. This dealership was a highly exclusive dealership- no Toyotas, Suzukis or Holdens, Ashton Martins, Bentleys, Rolls Royces, Jaguars. In fact, a certain ex-WAG had her very infamous car purchased from this dealership and was a frequent customer. I digress, but the point is, this was not a dealership that sold cheap cars. In fact, many of them cost over the million dollar mark (Dad to Me: "Kat, you know you're leaning on $1.5 million?")

Anyway, one day whilst my dad was doing his rounds a young Asian man (yes his race is important) and his girlfriend came in and wanted to buy a Bentley SUV (don't quote me), which was around the $200 000. This is all well and good, nothing wrong here, except that the man wanted to pay completely in cash. Oh, and he had a $20 000 cash deposit with in in the sports bag he was holding.

In addition, because the man was wearing a singlet/wife beater, his arms and back were fairly exposed, all of which were completely tattooed in well known Hong Kong/Chinese gang symbols, most prominent of which was a huge dragon. Naturally, the dealership declined the would be customers' sale, informing him that legally they could not accept that amount of cash. They then the gang squad at the local police station, who confirmed the dealerships suspicions after they described the tattoos.

This wasn't the first time it happened either, nor was it limited to just Asian gangs- I believed that the Legitimate Businessman's Social Club was also a big fan of luxury cars. But it makes sense- if you've got a heap of cash from illegal activities, one of the best ways to 'legitimise' this money is by buying cars, especially at the higher end dealerships where pleasing the customer is paramount. That being said, it is mandatory for any large vash purchases to be reported to police, or they run the risk of being found complicit in money laundering and organised crime. That's why a lot of dealerships don't keep money or make change.

WAG? In my vernacular, WAG stands for Wild-Arsed Guess, which judging from context is not the intended meaning.

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~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Common sense is not a gift, but a curse. Because thenyou have to deal with all the people who don't have it. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

WAG? In my vernacular, WAG stands for Wild-Arsed Guess, which judging from context is not the intended meaning.

If I may...It's used in football circles for the Wives and Girldfriends.

My one bit of useless trivia for the day.

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“For too long, we've assumed that there is a single template for human nature, which is why we diagnose most deviations as disorders. But the reality is that there are many different kinds of minds. And that's a very good thing.” - Jonah Lehrer

As part of a sales agency/distribution company we go to a lot of industry conferences. This particular conference we had our own booth for the first time (we are mainly west coast and this was east coast). We had arranged with our trucking company to deliver a pallet of supplies - brochures, samples, etc. - the morning the conference center was open. There are always long lines for the delivery trucks as all the vendors have to get their stuff delivered and set up in one day. The only way to be finished setting up the booth before nightfall is to get the truck in the line early. The company was contracted to be get to the center around 8 AM and all of our material would be available in a reasonable amount of time.

So the day the set-up starts we get to the conference center around 9 AM. We set up what we can (rented couches, display cases) and check with the receiving people if our pallet has been checked in yet. After getting a negative we decide to run to Walmart to pick up some last minutes supplies (glass cleaner, small potted plants, energy bars, etc) fully expecting to find our pallet waiting for us when we got back. After lunch we went to receiving and found out that the truck had never been in the line to begin with. My boss called our office (which, due to the time difference, was just starting their day) and spoke to our purchaser. The purchaser (hereafter P) called up the company to find out what was going on.Well. The person P talked to said that the trucker decided he didn't want to wait in line all that time (which was in the contract) and would deliver the pallet later. After 5 PM in fact. Unfortunately, the conference receiving center closed at 4:30. All our marketing materials were on this pallet.After P pulled up the contract and read them the riot act they grudgingly agreed to get to the conference center as soon as they could (it was about 2 PM). We waited for another hour for the truck to appear. My boss was trying to haunt the receiving area without annoying people so around 3:30 she noticed a single box leaning against one of the doorways with her name on it. She asked the receiving people and they said a man had walked up to the doorway without checking in and just left the box there. Huh - said my boss - but where's the rest of the pallet? No pallet, just the box.Now this particular box was long, thin, and heavy - which is why it had been placed in the middle of the pallet and the whole thing cocooned in shrink-wrap.My boss called P who hit the roof; P called the company again and was informed that their records showed that we had only shipped the box. Unfortunately for them, we had had the weight recorded, the number of packages on the pallet, a picture, and the signature of the delivery company when they picked it up. The company back-pedaled after realizing that we kept good records and started following up to find out what had happened. Meanwhile OUR office was scouring their building for left-over material and overnighting it to us. Back at the conference center it was after 6:30 PM when we gave up on the truck. We brainstormed and managed to put up simple displays featuring what we had been able to fit in our luggage. Since we were marketing "natural" material we decided to tell people that we were collecting emails instead of handing out brochures in order to save trees.

Epilogue: the rest of our pallet mysteriously appeared 2 hours after the conference started, the shrink wrap torn up and boxes beat to heck. It was unceremoniously dumped at our booth and left for us to deal with. We had to unpack the boxes, move, and clean up the debris while customers swirled around us.

So that's one company that we will never do business with again!

Agh, my office had similar issues, but with the hotel/conference center. I worked for an organization that hosted education conferences. Part of the conference set-up was an "expo room" where vendors could set up booths. At our largest conference, we could have 50-60 vendors, so we chose large conference centers used to handling this sort of traffic. We switched to a new conference center one year because they offered huge discounts if we agreed to hold several meetings at their location. Big mistake.

We sent our booths and marketing materials well ahead of time so they would be waiting for us when we arrived at the hotel. We spoke with the conference center manager several times, emphasizing how important it was that we be able to reach the materials easily so we could set up before the vendors and participants arrived. We had it written into the contract that our materials would be stored in a separate area adjacent to where our temporary office space for the conference was located. We get there and our materials were nowhere to be found. We had the shipping manifest and the delivery confirmation from the shipping company, which includes a scan of the conference center manager's signature. So we knew it was there.

Finally, the manager admitted that our materials arrived early and were shoved in the back of the main storage room. As more and more materials arrived from the vendors, they were put in the storage room, between our materials and the door, making it more and more difficult to reach our stuff. Manager was not apologetic at all and said, "Just wait until the other vendors arrive and get their stuff, then you can get yours." My boss explained this wasn't acceptable, we need to set up before the vendors arrived. Manager shrugged and said, "Well, there's nothing I can do." Boss disagreed and told him he was going to have to pull all of the other vendors materials out of the room so we could access ours. He said he couldn't authorize the man-power needed to do that. She said "OK, either you get us our materials right now, or I will consider you in breach of contract, and we will not be obligated to hold other meetings at your conference center. You can explain to your boss how you lost a (big dollar sign) account because you didn't want to rectify a mistake that YOU made."

Suddenly, the man-power to clear the storage room appeared and we were able to set up as planned. We stayed with that hotel through the end of the contract, but it was a very frosty relationship between us and management. We were offered the chance to renew the contract. Boss made it clear why we wouldn't.

The Maryland Knights of Columbus (a Catholic men's fraternal order) stopped giving their annual BIG EVENT to a particular hotel in Frederick. BE has several hundred people at this event, often close to a thousand, and usually fills the hosting hotel, to the point that in the past there has been a need to have blocks of a SECOND hotel reserved. The rooms ringing the indoor pool/atrium are reserved as hospitality rooms, each one designated for a particular council or assembly. They have drinks and nibbles in them all day except for the banquet time. And again, the banquet is several hundred people paying about $40-$50 each for a lettuce salad, rubber chicken, raw green beans, and over-salted potatoes, all so heavily seasoned with pepper as to be inedible. (Except for renegade pagans like me! I go to a restaurant and get exactly the meal I want, and it's edible.) So you know that the hotel rakes in the dough for this.

Except the hotel people evidently thought it was not sufficient $$$$$$, and the last year the KofC was there, the hotel booked ANOTHER event in the same atrium space for the same Saturday night. I think it was a class reunion. The hotel staff didn't want to get more tables out for it, so they came around and tried to kidnap tables that we were already using! The reunion largely featured booze flowing like rivers, leading to drunken off-key caterwauling at the karaoke contest. Did I mention that the amplifiers were turned up AS LOUD AS THEY COULD GO?

When they weren't "singing" there was a DJ playing something he probably thought was music. The bass BOOM BOOM BOOM could be heard (and felt! ) all over the hotel. Complaints to the front desk about the tablenapping and the "music" were greeted with shrugs. The other party had paid for the space so they could do whatever they liked. And what they liked was to continue the party until 2AM.

The next day there was a line wrapping well into the hallway of people demanding the night's room charges be taken off their bill, because they couldn't sleep with all the noise. DH was there too. The loud noises had triggered a severe migraine for me and of course I was unable to sleep it off until they quit; I was still groggy from the vicodin. (Thank the gods for narcotic painkillers!) Management was overwhelmed. He tried to say "Well, give us your email address and we'll--" I don't know what he was going to do, because half the people there hollered "WE DON'T HAVE EMAIL!" (The KofC runs largely to elderly men; most of their members are retired, and a significant percentage of those are in their 70's and 80's.)

I think it took letters to corporate before people got piddly refunds and abject apologies. Still not enough for the KofC, so now another hotel in another city gets to host Big Event, and the Holiday Inn in Frederick gets to do something rude and anatomically impossible.

« Last Edit: December 08, 2012, 08:45:50 PM by Elfmama »

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~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Common sense is not a gift, but a curse. Because thenyou have to deal with all the people who don't have it. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

If you know the charging requirements (usually it will be something like "Output: 5V ---- 1A"), then you can search for the exact power requirements. As long as the charger you buy has the proper connection, and has the exact power output you need, you'll be set.

Or a lower output. We're having this problem with our Kindle Fire--Amazon's power adapters never last long and we need yet another new one. Our Fire is still under warranty so it should be free, but since they introduced the second generation Fire they don't make those chargers anymore--the second generation Fire comes with a mini USB cord and you have to buy a wall charger separately, which is "currently unavailable" from Amazon. They tried giving us a second generation Fire but I hated it, plus I thought it was stupid to replace a $200 tablet instead of a $20 charger. So they're sending a second refurbished charger (even though they assured me that they're all quality tested, the first refurbished one was so loose it literally fell out of the Fire) and I have to use my cell phone charger for now, which is half as powerful. It works, just much much more slowly. Not really a "never shopping there again" offense (yet), but I probably couldn't say that about Amazon anyway since we order so much stuff from them.

I find that my true Blackberry charger does charge my Kindle Fire as quickly as a Kindle Fire Charger. It does have to be a Blackberry OEM charger or it does take twice as long